A typical incident

[Sasha]

I think that the great thing about this site and the meet ups is to exchange stories and information. It helps me to tell the story and I get helped by hearing others with similar stories that make me realise I'm not mad.

So, here we go, this week, a typical bloody anxiety incident.

I work in an office full of lots of people doing office work.
I need to talk to this guy who's fairly new and I haven't said more than good morning to before.

So I approach him, all confident and shake hands and say, can we just have a quick chat. So we decide that the MDs office is free and go in there. I ask him about some stuff and he talks and tells me stuff and draws diagrams.

While he's looking down and drawing and whatnot I have not real problems.

Then we talk more face to face and my anxiety level starts to climb. I do the takign a breath bit and it helps. We talk more. A member of this forum recently told me about visualisation and looking up and to the left which is supposed to be some kind of memory recall thing. I do this and it helps a bit.

But gradually I feel myself turning red. My heart is pounding and my eyes are watering. I'm blinking far too much and I'm aware that the other guy must be noticing this. I want to yell: ?LOOK MATE, I SUFFER ANXIETY ATTACKS ? OK, don?t worry about it. Just carry on talking, I just need  to hyperventilate, to pace about a bit and fidget?.
But of course I don?t. I persevere but I find that I'm letting the conversation end. By that I mean that when the guy says something that I'd like to pick up on, instead I just let it go. I let the guy finish and then do a finish up bit of talk and say, this was useful and maybe we can talk again.

I leave, not knowing if I came across OK or not but with the apprehension that I appeared like a complete idiot.

Experience and appeals to the rational part of my mind tell me that I am probably worrying too much and the other guy was probably too involved in his own head to worry about what may have appeared minor details in my behaviour.

But I feel like I have failed. And that is depressing.

hey ho. Persevere.

To paraphrase Igor in the film Young Frankenstein:

  "It could be worse - It could be raining"

[mrbob]

Wow, that sounds a nightmare Sasha.

Is that not one person in the office you could talk to about it? They could tell others in confidence is necessary, so those others don't get a weird vibe.

Are you in a situation where you fear it could be detrimental if you let people know about your anxiety.

[Noisy]

Hi Sasha,

Like you said, I bet he didn't even notice! I know what you mean about feeling as if you've failed. I find that aspect of anxiety the hardest to overcome. We so often worry about what other people think but it's our perception of ourselves that is most powerful. Thanks for posting this very honest and open account. I'm sure it will help countless people who read it and it sure made me think about my own experiences.

Best wishes,
Martin. 

[Sasha]

Yeh, i have thought about telling people.

The fear is that people wont take it seriously and it will become a standing joke. "Oh, here we go, he's getting excietetd again.."

[Slimboy Jim]

Thing is, Sacha, the panicky feelings of palpatations, sweating and overbreathing are only too real and noticeable to the sufferer because we feel the discomfort inside our own bodies, but to other people they are far less noticeable visually . I think we all tend to think that people ar far more aware of our inner panic than they really are. And as you say, quite rightly, other people are often simply thinking about their own stuff (or perhaps even their own insecurities!) to pay much attention to anything your body might be giving away. 

As you know, I'm a longtime sufferer of work-related anxiety and have also unfortunately experienced many, many "do they notice/do I look like an idiot?"-type situations like the one you have described, so I completely understand where you're coming from. Trouble is that when we dwell greatly on these negative incidents we're only feeding the circle if anxiety. You haven't failed here; you approached him confidently, spoke for maybe a few minutes without a glitch, then when necessary tried a coping technique and it helped, ok not much maybe, but keep practicing it and you may have more success another time. And what about all the times you had face-to-face discussions with colleagues that day or that week when you didn't panic and didn't fidget and didn't get hot under the collar?!? Maybe sometimes you'd even go so far as to credit yourself with believing that you've been assertive on some occasions???

Stay positive mate. 
James

[Sasha]

Thanks for that.